Formicidae, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Arthropoda, Animalia
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Additional images: worker from La Selva, face view (small, large); lateral view (small, large). Queen, face view (small, large); lateral view (small, large); mandible (large).
Range
Costa Rica: throughout in wet forests, sea level to 1500m cloud forest.
Identification
Uniformly shiny brown; clypeal carinae widely diverging, projecting clypeal teeth short; mandible with four teeth, but basal tooth small, such that mandible does not have differentiated masticatory and basal margins, subfalcate; eye with 1-3 ommatidia in a row; deep metanotal groove; ventral margin of postpetiole flat or with very weak tooth. Specimens from 500m on Barva transect with clypeal carinae less divergent and teeth stronger. Specimens from Osa Peninsula have stronger, more elevated clypeal carinae.
Similar species: JTL-005.
Natural History
This species occurs in wet forest habitats from lowland rainforest to montane cloud forest. It occurs in Winkler samples of sifted leaf litter from the forest floor. I have observed and collected from only one nest. It was at the 1500m site of the Barva Transect (Finca Murillo), a cloud forest area. Along a stream edge I found a nest in clay soil of the stream bank. It was a 1cm diameter chamber about 10cm deep in the clay. The nest contained a single queen.
This species must routinely nest in the soil and forage in the leaf litter. Winkler samples frequently contain workers but I have never seen a queen in one. The only queen I have seen is from the one nest excavation. The queen is relatively distinctive and should be noticable if one occurred in a Winkler sample. This is in contrast to the similar JTL-005, whose queens are common in Winkler samples.
Page author:
John T. Longino, The Evergreen State College, Olympia WA 98505 USA.longinoj@evergreen.edu
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